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Decorated former Irish Army Commandant Rips up Green Party Membership Card and Supports Independent
national |
politics / elections |
news report
Wednesday June 03, 2009 18:58 by Edward Horgan and Patricia McKenna pmmckenna at eircom dot net
“Green Party shreds and incinerates its principles to achieve power-at-all-costs”
Edward Horgan Resigns from Green Party
Veteran UN peacekeeper and human rights activist Dr. Edward Horgan was a prominent Green Party member until he resigned and gave his support for the EU elections to independent candidate Patricia McKenna.
Mr Horgan who was a prominent member of the Greens for many years tore up his Green Party membership card during a Green Party press conference saying that the party had not only let their voters down but also members of their own party.
Patricia McKenna stated; “I welcome Edward’s support, he has a great track record on highlighting human rights abuses and I am honoured that he is supporting my campaign.”
The Green Party has abandoned its core principles in order to get into Government, and has pushed out its most principled members, including Patricia McKenna, Bronwen Maher, Chris O’Leary and Betty Doran.
The Green Party, led by John Gormley claimed to be staunch opponents of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and opponents of the abandonment of Irish neutrality at Shannon airport. They have even abandoned the pretence that the programme for Government would impose searches on CIA associated aircraft at Shannon airport.
Not only have no such planes been searched and no investigations carried out on the use of Shannon airport in the US torture rendition programme, but whistle blowers such as Edward Horgan and Conor Cregan have been unjustifiable arrested, charged and spuriously brought before the courts several times for daring to ask the Gardai to investigate the presence of CIA aircraft at Shannon. Both have been repeatedly vindicated by the Irish courts for their whistle blowing actions at Shannon airport.
Who will vindicate those lives lost and those prisoners tortured with the active complicity of the present Irish Government at Shannon airport?
It is now known that about one hundred prisoners have died in US custody since 2001, and that at least thirty of these died as a result of torture. Yet the Green Party in Government have been silent and complicit in these crimes in breach of the UN Convention against Torture, and complicit in the deaths of up to one million people in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I have been very slow to leave the Green Party and have discouraged others from doing so, on the basis that if we did leave, the lack of critical voices within the Green Party would lead to the whole green movement becoming corrupted by their unprincipled quest for power. This has now happened and the Shannon airport and neutrality issues have been final straw.
Ireland needs Patricia McKenna, and others like her, as critical voices in the European Parliament, and as crucial voices in the Dail, and in Local Government.
Ireland needs to end its complicity with crimes against humanity at Shannon airport. We have helped to cause the deaths up to 250,000 children in Iraq and Afghanistan. This scandal is of a greater scale than even the abuses perpetrated against Irish children by the religious orders.
Irish soldiers are now serving abroad with NATO in Afghanistan preventing the Afghan people from expelling their foreign invaders.
The Green Party have betrayed their members, and the Irish people, in a far more serious way that the Dick Spring/Albert Reynolds power at all costs arrangement in 1992.
The Irish electorate punished the Labour Party for several years, but it is recovering. The damage to the Irish green movement by the Green Party’s complicity in the present corrupt Fianna Fail Government is so deep that it may be beyond repair. The electorate should support those former Green party members who are standing by their principles and are now running as independent candidates.
In spite of claims that the Greens in Government are achieving their objectives, the opposite is the case. On the environment, relatively trivial successes on low energy bulbs and organic farming hide the reality of failure to make any substantial progress on alternative energy with Ireland trailing the rest of Europe on wind and solar energy.
The Green party has sold out on Corrib Gas project, sold out on Tara, and sold out on Irish neutrality and US military and CIA use of Shannon Airport. The Greens have bought in to Willie O’Dea’s triple lock on Irish neutrality, and ignored the fact that all these so-called locks have been dumped into the Shannon estuary, as Irish neutrality was abandoned in favour of war profiteering.
The Green Party leadership have effectively incinerated their principles. Perhaps the new incinerator in John Gormley’s constituency can be used to dispose of their unwanted principles.
However, the most serious aspect of Green party betrayal has been in the area of international peace and Irish neutrality.
The Green TDs and Senators have probably made a pact to stay in Government for the next three years to enhance their pensions and their power privileges. The people of Ireland cannot afford another three years of this corrupt and incompetent Fianna Fail /Green Government.
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Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4An item in the Irish Times website by Harry McGee includes the following:
"The conference was interrupted by peace activist Ed Horgan who said he was resigning from the Green Party as it had abandoned its core principles.
Mr Horgan protested that the Greens had reneged on Rossport, on the Hill of Tara and on Shannon Airport, before he was ushered to the side by officials. The Greens later said that Mr Horgan’s membership of the party has expired since 2007."
This is incorrect. I was assured earlier this year that my green party membership was current. In addition I was a member of the Green Party through the University of Limerick Green Party Society, and I have documentary proof of this. It is the Green Party themselves that are expiring, having abandoned their core principles.
Like Patricia McKenna, I urge the Green Party to reclaim some of their former integrity by collapsing the present Fianna Fail dominated government. If they insist in proping up this government for the next three years they will be responsible for enormous damage to the Ireland and to the Irish people.
If this happens, there will be an urgent need to establish a new environmentally based movement in Ireland.
The damage that has been done by the Green Party's complicity in this most corrupt of Irish governments is huge.
The people of Ireland should tell thim so on the ballot papers on Friday.
Fighting truth decay in Ireland is getting very though these days. All the best with your Campaign Patricia and we hope you get elected, you deserve it. Great to see People of principle are still around rock on Ed.
Just in case some may think my intervention at the Green Party press conference was vindictive or attempted point scoring, this was not the case. Most of the current and past Green Party members are serious and sincere people - the purpose behind my intervention was to achieve some accountability for very wrong actions and decisions taken by the Green Party leadership since they went into Government with Fianna Fail.
As citizens we all have a duty to make our politicians accountable. Challenging them in public and in private is one way of doing this. If my actions cost the Greens votes in tomorrow's elections, then that is a form of accountability, that is valid and justifiable. Of course Fianna Fail must be held accountable even more so, because they bear the primary responsibility for Irish complicity in the unlawful Iraq and Afghan wars and the torture rendition programme. In March 2003 my High Court case against the Fianna Fail led Irish Government achieved a small degree of accountability and challenged their wrongdoings.
If a lot more of Ireland's 4 million citizens took similar steps to demand accountabilty from our politicians then a lot less abuse and corruption would be perpetrated.
Coincidentially, another CIA associated aircraft N71PG owned by Pheonix Air, was refuelled at Shannon yesterday, and took off for the United States a few hours before my Green Party intervention.
Our Shannonwatch records show that this plane has been to Shannon on numerous occasions and to Guantanamo on several occasions including 10 April 2008 and on 8 December 2007 (having been refuelled at Shannon on 3 December 2007).
Please help us to achieve some accountability for Irish complicity in the deaths of up to one million people (including over 200,000 children) in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Irish complicity in the US torture rendition programme.
It's great to see people of integrity in Irish public life. The people will one day awake, and it might be sooner than we think.